Description of problem:
Recently machine began locking up hard after being up for a few hours. Tried
older kernel to no avail. Now I'm suspecting the ati driver in updates-testing.
I've gone back to the driver from FC5 release and am trying that.
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
6.5.8.0-1

'ati' is just a wrapper attempting to guess which driver really to use
and it was strongly suggested in the past that using the "real" one instead
('r128', 'radeon', ... ) which fits your video is really preferable.
OTOH fairly recently https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5781
was closed "due to the lack of activity". Related?

(In reply to comment #3)
> 'ati' is just a wrapper attempting to guess which driver really to use
This part is fairly accurate, in particular the "attempting" part, because
it does not actually work properly all the time and absolutely can not be
relied upon.
> and it was strongly suggested in the past that using the "real" one instead
> ('r128', 'radeon', ... ) which fits your video is really preferable.
There are still some people out there who recommend using the "ati" wrapper
for purist reasons, however as you state here, using the specific driver
is actually the correct thing to do. The "ati" wrapper is another
unnecessary layer of code that is not well maintained, and so does not
always know about various hardware that the actual real driver does know
about.
So, just for the record for everyone reading this, I'll go one step further
than just agreeing with you here, and actually state that using the
"r128" driver for Rage 128 hardware, and the "radeon" driver for Radeon
and FireGL hardware is the officially correct and only recommended way
to configure ATI hardware. Mach64 hardware can be configured to use either
"ati" or "atimisc" as that hasn't changed in ages.
In the future, the "ati" wrapper might be removed from X.Org, although
upstream hasn't yet committed to doing that yet, but it is very likely.
HTH

Created attachment 128663[details]
Diff between 6.5.7 and 6.5.8 Xorg logs
Okay, changed xorg.conf to use "radeon". Still have lockup with 6.5.8 and am
back on 6.5.7 now. I'm attaching a diff of the 6.5.7 and 6.5.8 Xorg.0.log
files. This is full boot for each with no rhgb.
Also think I may be seeing similar problem with a ATI Radeon VE/7000 QY card.
System hung starting up the rhgb server. Could move the cursor, but was stuck
at the blank screen and X cursor.

(In reply to comment #6)
> Have you tried using a lower Depth so that DRI could be enabled?
Yes, it dri works with a lower depth, but I'm not really interested in that. I
suppose I could see if I have the hang at lower depth and dri enabled. I'll see.
> Also, that RHGB hang might be due to a kernel bug (#190575). Have you tried
> updating to the 2.6.16-1.2111 kernel?
Yeah, the rhgb issue was definitly the kernel, sorry for the noise.

If this issue turns out to still be reproduceable in the latest
updates for this Fedora Core release, please file a bug report
in the X.Org bugzilla located at http://bugs.freedesktop.org in
the "xorg" component.
Once you've filed your bug report to X.Org, if you paste the new
bug URL here, Red Hat will continue to track the issue in the
centralized X.Org bug tracker, and will review any bug fixes
that become available for consideration in future updates.
Setting status to "NEEDINFO_REPORTER", and awaiting upstream
bug report URL for tracking.
Thanks in advance.

My system: IBM ThinkPad T30 with Radeon 7500 and 1400x1050 internal LCD, connected to external
1600x1200 VGA LCD. This system has been working reliably for months with FC3, in dual-head mode.
Updated to FC5 and found that baseline configuration no longer supported dual-head mode.
Per advice at http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-list/2006-May/msg02069.html I too updated my
ATI driver to xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.5.8.0-1.i386.rpm. Other than this module my system is 100% 'up-
to-date' per PUP.
Symptoms: Boots correctly into dual-head mode (no problems with rhgb). Seems to run fine for a
while, but eventually crashes. Complete hang - can't even SSH into it.
Note, one reliable way to hang it is to enter XScreenSaver 4.24 Preferences and click the "Mode" drop-
down list (which seems to default to "Random Screen Saver"). The 5-element list displays and the
system is immediately frozen. SSH remote access is dead too.

6.5.8.0 hit updates. Now my machine locks up regardless of color depth/DRI.
Gone back to 6.5.7.3-4.
Interestingly, it ran better last time in 24bit/no DRI (lasted over 24 hours,
rather than 8 minutes in 16bit/DRI.
Anthing I can do to debug?